The World; Where Kings Still Matter

By BARBARA CROSSETTE

Published: June 10, 2001

IN Europe, when princes and princesses choose the wrong mate or just act beastly to each other or to common folk, the citizenry can always shrug and say, Well, the pomp and palaces bring in tourist dollars, so what's the harm? Not so in Asia. For many Asians living under the rule of kings, constitutional or not, royalty can be a mystically personal thing.

So it was for the Nepalis who shaved their heads in mourning last week and rioted in disbelief that their crown prince, descendant of a god, could have slaughtered most of the royal family and then killed himself. Hundreds of other Nepalis waited in line outside the walls of the royal palace just to pay respects to a king who probably did nothing to make their starkly poor lives better.

A king can make a difference in other ways, though, and these matter. The late King Birendra of Nepal stood aside and relinquished much of his immense political power when a democracy movement arose more than a decade ago. Much blood was spared, and it was left to the ineffective politicians who followed to let the Nepali people down, while the king's stock rose by comparison.

For Cambodians, the figure of the eccentric and often erratic King Sihanouk was a symbol that held together a people decimated by the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970's, followed by a stifling Vietnamese occupation. Never mind that Sihanouk, in a rage against the United States for conspiring in his overthrow, had once cast his lot with Pol Pot and the fledgling Khmer Rouge, making them appear acceptable to many Cambodians who would later die in the movement's apocalyptic reign of terror.

In neighboring Thailand in the 1980's and 1990's, King Bhumibol Adulyadet, who is now the world's longest-reigning monarch, used his powerful personal aura to stabilize political situations time and again as civilians jostled the military for dominance. He did this with mere gestures: inviting a beleaguered prime minister to a country palace for the weekend, or being photographed with two contending power brokers kneeling side by side at his feet. A public finely tuned to nuance got the message: Problem solved. David K. Wyatt, a Cornell scholar who wrote a history of Thailand, remarked that in a time of turmoil, ''the king has defined the nation.''

At the same time, royal tension and intrigue, punctuated by bouts of bizarre or even dangerous behavior by wayward princes, forms the stuff of persuasive rumor in Asian capitals like Phnom Penh or Bangkok, though it's very easy to go to jail in Thailand for saying anything judgmental out loud about the royal family. The sultans of Malaysia and Indonesia may have lost power, but they are rarely boring. Rumors fly, in part, because Asian royalty, from the imperial household in Japan to the mountainside wooden residence of the Bhutanese king, guard their secrets fiercely, while not much that goes on in Western palaces escapes the European press.

The horrific events in Nepal last weekend, and speculation that there is much that will never be known about how the royal massacre was instigated, stir reminiscences across Asia about Thailand's royal secrets. On June 9, 1946 -- just as the country was crawling out of the ignominy of its wartime collaboration with Japan -- Bhumibol's brother, then the 20-year-old King Ananda Mahidol, was found in his private chambers with a bullet through his head. The present king, who then inherited the throne, was the last person to see his brother alive. The possibility that King Ananda was shot, even accidentally, by his brother, or that he killed himself -- since he was known to be frequently despondent -- is never discussed. The public clutches scraps. More than 40 years after Ananda's death, the two men's sister, Princess Galyani Vadhana, wrote a biography of their mother that concluded with an epilogue quoting Voltaire. It said, ''If you do not wish to commit suicide, always have something to do.'' There is a temptation to say, ''Aha!'' But is it justified?

THERE is more. Thais are now riveted on the question of who will succeed King Bhumibol, just as Cambodians watch with fascination as a claque of princes jockey for succession when Sihanouk dies, or the Lao keep an eye on a crown prince in exile, Soulivong Savang, who is waiting to return to the land where a Communist movement killed his father and grandfather, the last king of Laos.

Thailand's Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, the only son of King Bhumibol and Queen Sirikit, is the royal ''bad boy,'' with a reputation for violence, domestic and public, and a history of extramarital affairs. His mother once publicly called him ''a bit of a Don Juan, '' and in a rare interview with a Thai women's magazine, he was asked how it felt to be the family's black sheep. ''Sometimes black sheep serve a purpose,'' he replied a little acidly. ''Black sheep help those not-too-white ones seem whiter.'' Now the prince is said to be seriously ill, though the nature of the illness has never been disclosed. The next logical candidate would be his sister, Crown Princess Sirindhorn, who is immensely popular. But Thailand has never had a queen on the throne, and Princess Sirindhorn, now middle-aged, has never married, so what about heirs?

The preoccupation with succession -- an admission, perhaps, of the importance of royalty as a national symbol -- has played a part in the fascination with which the Japanese are watching the pregnancy of their crown princess, Masako. Across Asia, kings have learned that royal descent with all its often semi-sacred mythology may not be enough in the long term, however.

King Bhumibol said in an interview that he decided as a young man that he had to prove he could improve the lives of everyone if he wanted a strong role in society. His place in Thai hearts as well as in history has been strengthened immeasurably by innovative development projects ranging from agricultural research to finding environmentally friendly ways to treat the raw sewage in Bangkok's grimy ponds and canals. He's been watched from afar by King Jigme Singye Wangchuck of Bhutan, who remarked a few years ago that he was well aware that monarchy may not be a very popular form of government. Thank God for his Thai counterpart, he said. ''He keeps the flag flying for a dying race of kings.''

Photo: Mourners outside the royal palace in Katmandu, Nepal, after the king and members of his family were killed. (Associated Press)